In Genesis 7, we saw how the Lord fulfilled His promise in bringing a world-wide flood on the earth as judgment for man’s wickedness. No one believed that judgment would come, but this did not change the truth of what the Lord had said. We see the same thing happening today: men do not like to believe that the Lord will bring a final judgment of fire on the earth, but one day soon it will happen just like He said. However, we See Noah and his family, along with each kind of pair of land animals in whose nostrils was the breath of life, safe aboard the ark. In this we see a picture of Jesus Christ: all who are found within Jesus (the ark of salvation) will be spared from the wrath to come. In chapter 8, we will see how all those aboard the ark will be preserved by God’s mercy.
It states that God remembered Noah and all those aboard the ark with him. Now the Lord had not forgotten about Noah, but in fact, it was quite the opposite. The Lord had Noah and those aboard the ark in His mind the entire time. When this phrase is used in the Bible it usually means that the Lord is getting ready to act on behalf of that person(s), and that is precisely what we see happening here.
The Lord caused a wind to blow across the earth, and the waters receded. Most of us have had our carpets cleaned or had some flooding, and one of the go-tos is to run a fan over it to dry it out. Maybe we have had a garden or done some farming, and you can see how wind dries out the ground as well as the plants. This was one of the methods the Lord was using here.
The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped. There are some who also believe that there was some tectonic shifting that took place to aid in the receding of the waters. In Psalm 104:6-9, it says, “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. They went up over the mountains; they went down into the valleys, to the place which You founded for them. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth.” With the subterranean reservoirs now emptied or drastically reduced of much of its water, earth’s crust would have been in an unstable condition. The earth’s crust would have then collapsed under the weight of the water into these reservoirs, forming our current ocean basins. The sediments in the sea troughs were then pushed up to form mountain ranges and plateaus. One would expect to see volcanic activity associated with this, and that is exactly what we see in many places. There is also evidence of mountain ranges such as the Andes and Himalayas thrusting upward at approximately the same time thousands of years ago. For example, remains of cities have been found high up in the Andes that show they used to grow corn that is now at an elevation too high to do so. So as this upward thrust continued in the years after the Flood, they abandoned the cities for lower ground.
Within 150 days (five months) of the beginning of the flood, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, which is Armenia or modern-day Turkey. It is a mountain range, but the current-day Mt. Ararat is apparently the most logical site. It has an elevation of around 17,000 feet, but evidence shows it was lower in the years immediately after the Flood. Nonetheless, there are marine fossils that have been found on the summit, proving that it once was under water.
The waters continued to recede for another two and a half months or so until the tops of the other mountains could be seen. Noah released a raven and a dove to help him determine when the ground was dry enough to come out of the ark. Ravens are scavengers who would have little trouble finding food, nor would they be picky about where they roost. A dove, on the other hand, would seek for food and roosting on dry land. It was not until the second time that the dove brought back an olive leaf that Noah knew the waters had receded sufficiently enough for vegetation to grow at lower elevations. He waited one more week to release the dove again, but this time it did not return to him. Almost 11 months into it, he removed the covering of the ark, and the surface of the ground was dry. It was over a year from the beginning of the Flood (370 days) until the waters had dried up enough for them to leave the ark.
It was at this point that the Lord spoke again to Noah. Now if I were Noah, I would have preferred that the Lord speak to me at some point during the Flood to reassure me I was going to make it, but the Lord did not. Noah had to trust the Lord by faith that he, his family, and all the animals would be spared as He had said. The Lord waited until the flood waters had completely receded before He spoke to Noah and told them to leave the ark. Noah took some reasonable steps to determine when they should leave, but ultimately, they did not leave until the Lord told them to. God told them to go in, and He told them to go out. If we believe the Lord has told us to do something specific like this, it might be wise to keep doing that until we hear differently.
After they all had left the ark, Noah built an altar and offered burnt offerings unto the Lord. The burnt offering speaks of dedication and commitment to God. Imagine the relief and gratitude Noah felt when he stepped off the ark for the first time after the Lord had brought them through such a cataclysmic event over a year later. In light of this, Noah was making a fresh commitment to follow and serve the Lord. He took one of every clean animal and one of every clean bird. Remember, there were only seven pairs of clean animals (male and female), so this would have been quite a sacrifice.
The Lord was pleased with the soothing aroma of the offering. There’s just something satisfying about smelling meat roasting on the fire. I’m sure He was more satisfied with Noah’s fresh commitment, but this was maybe the icing on the cake so to speak. It was here that the Lord made a covenant with Noah and the rest of creation. He said in His heart that He would never again curse the ground (destroy it with a flood) for man’s sake, nor destroy every living thing while the earth remains. His reason was that the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth. In other words, he is a sinner by nature, and no matter how many times the Lord destroyed every living thing with a flood, the problem would still remain. The problem is sinful man, and the only cure for him is to be made into a new man through Jesus Christ. This was God’s design from the beginning (Revelation 13:8).
The Lord stated, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” It is thought that there were no seasons prior to the Flood, since there was no clear mention of them specifically in the Genesis account. If the canopy theory is correct, this layer was no longer present protecting earth from the sun’s harmful rays, nor would there be any global green-house effect. This would have created temperature inconsistencies at different latitudes, trade winds, and the weather patterns we see today. Another theory is that Earth had a zero-degree tilt prior to the Flood, and the catastrophic events of the Flood were enough to change it to 23.5 degrees. This too, would have had a similar effect on temperature and weather patterns.
Currently the rotation of the tilted earth has a slight wobble, and interestingly enough, it is partially affected by changes in water levels around the globe. Prior to the creation of the new heavens and new earth, this wobble will become more pronounced and out of control. Isaiah writes, (24:18-20) “And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.” The earth goes through cycles in which its wobble increases to a peak, and then straightens up again. However, this wobble appears to be getting worse over time. NASA likes to attribute it to global warming, but it is simply the earth waxing old like a garment as the author of Hebrews states. It’s like a spinning top that wobbles as it slows down and eventually falls over. According to Isaiah, it will eventually wobble out of control and be moved out of its place. It will be completely destroyed when the Lord creates the new heaven and the new earth.
Believer, God has remembered you and me in the person of Jesus Christ who has “Given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (Eph 5:2) If the Lord did not keep His promises (even just one of them) to you and me, then we would have no grounds to believe He will keep His future promises. However, He has kept them, and He will keep them. He remembered us by “Saving His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), and He will remember us by delivering us from the wrath that is to come. Search the Scriptures: in chapters 4-19 of the book of Revelation, the Church is not mentioned once as being on planet earth. So, let us, out of gratitude, commit ourselves to Him anew as Noah did, presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service.
If you are not a Christian, this same promise of salvation and deliverance is available to you. You only have to receive it by faith. Call on the name of the Lord, “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” (Rom 10:13)
In the next several verses we will take a deeper look at the covenant the Lord made with Noah, and we will see some interesting implications for us today.
Additional Links
New Defender's Study Bible Notes
Genesis 8 - Chuck Smith Bible Commentary
No comments:
Post a Comment